After the Villans went a goal up thanks to an individual effort from Gabby Agbonlahor, helped by Forster’s moment of madness, Nathaniel Clyne scored late in the game and the match ended in a draw. Villa’s back line, hampered by injuries, performed admirably. That display was capped by Ciaran Clark winning the man of the match award, having done so much to help the Villans earn a good point.
The match itself wasn’t the greatest of spectacles yet it was never boring and actually provided some decent entertainment for neutrals on a bitterly cold Monday night. It ended in a battling draw but there were chances for both teams to snatch a win. Villa conceded possession throughout the entire game yet reduced Southampton to mostly half-chances. Brad Guzan pulled off a great save from a curling effort from Mane, which was destined for the net until the big American intervened.
The positives
Despite having earned mixed reviews this season, Gabby Agbonlahor played well in the lone striker role. He gave his team an outlet; he was willingly running into the channels, forcing Southampton’s defenders to stay back and continuously putting pressure on them. He drove the team forward whenever possible and closed the opposition’s back line down frequently – and effectively. This was evident when he scored; the goal came from a long ball from Ciaran Clark and, as it flew towards the Southampton box, the speedy Agbonlahor chased it down and got his reward. His goal was extremely well-taken: as he rounded the goalie and was through on goal, the striker still had a lot to do and I’m sure a few of us had our hearts in our mouths. To his credit, he slotted it in with ease with his weaker foot to give the hosts the lead. That was the Gabby we need to show up more often – the menacing, speedy forward with an eye for goal.
Jores Okore’s return was something Villa fans had hoped to see for some time. It’s still debatable if Lambert would have picked him if any one of the other defenders were ‘half-fit’ to play but I’m glad Okore took his chance and played with confidence. His last competitive appearance for Villa came fourteen months ago. He was unfortunate not to add a clean sheet on his return but he performed very well on the night and nullified Southampton’s goal threat for most of the game. If the rumours are true about Vlaar leaving soon, I’m not too worried as I believe he will be Ron Vlaar’s natural successor.
After the game, Paul Lambert commended Jores Okore and said the lad had done well so hopefully Lambert has realised that Okore is able to step in and make that centre back spot his own.
Despite harsh criticism in the past, there’s no doubt Ciaran Clark stepped up yesterday. His performance was more like what we thought we’d see from him when he first broke into the first team when he looked like a dominant centre-back with leadership qualities and a potential candidate for the Villa captaincy in the future. As we know, things didn’t pan out like that for the Ireland international and he dropped back down the pecking order. Being continuously involved in relegation battles could ruin most players’ confidence and affect their abilities but Clark is ‘one of our own’ and genuinely cares about the club so we should support him as much as we can.
Alan Hutton has been a revelation. We have witnessed a spectacular turnaround in his Villa career. His ‘bomb-squad’ status has been dropped and he has put in some excellent performances both defensively and in attack since the start of the season. Yesterday, I thought he was very good, one of the best performers. Aly Cissokho has been fairly solid – and long may that continue. He does a good job defensively and gets forward to support when he can. He has put some good crosses into the box; hopefully when Benteke comes back we’ll see those two link up.
The negatives
N’Zogbia was terrible yesterday. I can’t think of a worse performance by a Villa player this season. He couldn’t run with the ball without completely overrunning the ball, mis-controlling it or hitting it five yards in front of him with his poor first touch. Also, he couldn’t stop running into the Southampton players. He did get one chance during the game to score but he unfortunately hit his shot straight at a defender. I don’t know if he’ll ever become a good player for us. There are those who think he might make a significant impact this season, I hope those people are right, but I seriously doubt it. I was really hoping that Paul Lambert would bring someone else on in N’Zogbia’s place and wanted to see Jack Grealish more than Kieran Richardson but a change was needed and I was surprised N’Zogbia didn’t go off at half time.
Another bad point was Paul Lambert’s decision to bring on Darren Bent. Just what was he thinking? Bringing on the ineffective, immobile player whose best years are definitely behind him was a bad decision. I’m sure Bent only touched the ball once in the time he was the field, which was approximately twenty minutes. I can understand Gabby Agbonlahor being tired from the closing down he’d been doing for most of the game but if that was the case then whydidn’t Lambert bring on Leandro Bacuna, a fit and young athletic player with an engine that can run for days? If we were creating chances in abundance, I would have brought Bent on to try and nick a goal but we weren’t creating many chances at all in the second half so the decision to bring on Bent was absolutely astounding to me. It was like we were playing with ten men with Bent on the pitch.
We got a point from a team that is in second place in the table, only four points behind an impressive Chelsea team, which is a decent result.
The next couple of games will be vital: if we can’t get at least two wins out of the next five games, I believe we will be in the relegation battle all season and this time we might not survive…
I suspect Lambert makes suprising changes for a reason which at the time might not seem obvious to the casual observer . And given todays rumour that Bent is off to Brighton it could be that he was being given one final chance to prove himself !
This casual observer, thinks he put Bent on knowing he would not look good when we were on the backfoot, and it would make him look bad, so we would applaud his loan out. That is the way that man thinks, and it could have caused us to lose the game, he’s a fool, just the opinion of a casual observer.
well done clarky,okore hutton.hutton is a proper old school full back ,tackles hard,and when he gets whacked he just gets straight up ,no moaning or rolling around ,and carries on.great to have him back.